Reminder: Monthly A Pass Fare Increase in July

Update: As reader Rachel pointed out below, the M pass (Muni-only) will also go up by $2 and will be $64 starting July. Thanks, Rachel!

Starting in July, the monthly Muni A pass will cost you $74 instead of $72. We first learned about this last year via the Examiner, who reports that the SFMTA’s board of directors approved the fare increase program in 2010 based on inflation.

For those of you on WageWorks, you should have received an email alert and your order should be automatically adjusted for the new price.

The A pass includes BART rides within city limits. The basic fare per Muni ride is still $2.

10 comments

I love how this isn’t posted ANYWHERE on the SFMTA website. I asked the good people are 311 about it and they gave me outdated info from 2011 and said I’d hear back from someone “in a couple days.” Classic.

May I just say that at least SFMTA is doing a good job of keeping pass prices relatively low? I moved here from Seattle, where just 4 years ago, a monthly peak period pass was in the low 80’s and is now $90. This came with a series of fare increases, but still, kudos to SFMTA for not totally killing the pocket-book. If you don’t need to use BART, the M-Pass is actually quite a steal.

While other systems are more expensive, I’d hardly consider a 64% increase over three years to be effective cost control.

Combined with Muni’s consistent, inconsistent-at-best service delivery, it’s hardly as good of a “value” as it was in recent history.

Many of my friends have abandoned Muni for cars or bicycles because they were just too fed up with it. This is the “death spiral” that many know Muni is facing: raising fares and crap service lead to fewer riders and, therefore, lower revenues… which then drives higher fares to make up for the shortfall and crappier service. And then repeat and repeat.

Combined with the total mismanagement and political jockeying at the board level (oh, let’s approve a $9 million youth fare giveaway in the middle of a massive budget deficit!) and the City using Muni as a piggy bank… don’t think that more cuts and fare increases aren’t coming.

I hear ya. Personally, I’d rather ride a bike than Muni any day, but this is the state of transit agencies nationwide. A big part of the deficit is declining revenue. The reality of transit agencies is that farebox revenue amounts to nothing compared to the federal and state funding that is (or should be) provided. People looking to have better Muni service or transit service in general really should wrtie to their legislators. This year, the house tried to pass a transit, pedestrian, and cyclist infrastructure killing package, but it’s now been narrowly held back because of the engagement of citizens.

As for the bicycling aspect of things, I am still totally floored by the fact that Muni doesn’t allow bikes on the metro. They really only need to remove one or two seats, install hooks, and that’s it. I don’t see how that negatively affects people, and multi-modal options historically have help transit agencies all over the place.

Blahhhh…..sorry. Transit-nerdism just came out. Don’t even get me started on the central subway idea. I’m such a huge fan of surface rail (if done correctly) that I feel money could be spent elsewhere in improving the service quality of the existing metro stock.

Thanks for this – no word from CommuterCheck, my employers vendor for this stuff… what a pain! Yea for Muni on not bothering to think that communication with the core base of customers (the ones least likely to graffiti or trash their busses) is needed…..